In Parables for the Virtual, Brian Massumi argues that “belief has waned for many, but not affect. If anything, our condition is characterized by a surfeit of it. The problem is that there is no cultural-theoretical vocabulary specific to affect.” Indeed, in a time when so much experience is mediated, encountered through representation, the functioning of affect is especially complex, shaping our daily lives as citizens, consumers, and subjects. Yet without a precise language, it becomes difficult to account for the precise ways that this occurs. Shielded from scrutiny, affect begins to seem apolitical and naturalized, rather affixed to representations laden with ideological projects.

We welcome projects that consider the following topics or others, as they illuminate the relationships between affect and representation:

• Biopolitics and governmentality
• History and historiography
• Nation, state, and nation-state
• Religion
• Art, film, and literature
• Popular culture
• Trauma
• The family
• Psychoanalysis
• Gender and sexuality
• Terror and terrorism
• Crises and disasters
• Performance
• Philosophy and ethics
• Environmentalism
• Technology
• Race
• Illness, medicine, and death
• Justice and the law
• Class and capital

Please send 250-word abstracts for individual 20-minute papers (or panels of 3-4 presenters) to AffectAndRepresentation@hotmail.com. The deadline for submissions is November 10th, 2007. Accepted applicants will be notified by November 30th. In the body of the e-mail, please include the following information:

Presenter(s) name(s):
Institutional affiliation(s):
Level of graduate study:
Title of paper:
Contact information: